Hop Oxidation Wanted?

[Insight]

I was just listening to an old episode on Basic Brewing Radio. They were interviewing a guy from Brewers Supply Group who had spent a lot of his time with hops (he was approaching retirement age). One thing that stood out from the discussion was his advice to always remove your hops from the freezer at least 24 hours prior to using them. The reason was to slightly oxidise the hops and reduce the level of myrcene imparted to the beer - especially with aroma and dry hops. He was adament this would improve your beer. This is a description I found on myrcene:

"Myrcene is a very volatile hop oil. Lost during storage and rapidly during boil. A principal aroma factor in dry hopping. Its aroma is not always considered desirable. Typically the "noble" hops have a lower Myrcene figure."

Anyone do this as a matter of course? My usual practice is they are weighed out from the freezer within a few hours of being used.

 

[Screwtop]

My usual practice is they are weighed out from the freezer within a few hours of being used.

Few minutes before here

 

[beerguide]

Interesting, I might listen to that cast. I typically remove them the night before, but that was only when I typically begin getting ready to brew. IE: Clean brewing table, get gear ready in place to be cleaned/sanitised etc..

If it wasn't for my getting ready early (mainly due to eagerness) I'd whip out as I needed them.

 

[KoNG]

hmmm, mine are weighed out about an hour before they start swimming.
will follow this thread with interest

 

[Keith the Beer Guy]

Insight,

I have nothing to add directly to your post, my practice has always been to keep my hops as airtight and and as cold as possible up until using them.

I do however, vaguely recall being completely amazed when reading Brew Chem 101, as they explained that the flavours that are typical of the cascade family of hops, your big citrus characters, are oxidation products of some of the hop components.

A little bit of mistreatment might improve your beer!

Happy brewing,

Keith

 

[shonky]

There's some really good info on hop ageing in Ray Daniels Designing Great Beers including some tables on research which show the levels of different breakdown products in both fresh and aged hops.

The gist of the section is that there is substantial (but incomplete with much more research required) evidence that hop character can increase with age, more pronounced in the aroma/flavour hops (in the study cited, of twenty hop varieties, all the aroma hops apart from cascade showed an improvement with age.

He mentions three different ageing techniques that can be used being: 32c for 19 days, 6 months at ambient and refrigerated for 1 year! On this basis you wouldn't think taking the hops out of the freezer the night before would make much difference but certainly wouldn't hurt.

Cheers :beer: